POEM OP GOVEENMBNT. 
57 
steep, that this most necessary article in domestic 
economy is only brought down in small quantities by 
children, who take as many cocoa-nuts full of it as 
they can carry in a basket on the head. 
The government appears to he an oligarchy, vested 
— as far as we could learn, from the very imperfect 
English which is spoken — in five persons, who, by 
turns, “ take a spell,” as they call it, in the berth of 
Governor. The tenure of office is not for life, — nor 
for any term of years, — ^-nor at the will or pleasure of 
any despot, whether regal or the sovereign people, — it 
is not in fact, regulated on any known cycle or prin- 
ciple, usually adopted in other communities. But it 
is perliaps the most fluctuating and uncertain method 
that could be devised, though founded on the recur- 
rence of an event which all most anxiously looked for, 
— namely, the arrival of ships. To record these would 
be a compendium of their history, chronology, physi- 
cal and moral phenomena, — the end and object of all 
their prayers and religious aspirations. 
They think that the greatest good that God can 
confer on them, is to send ships, from which alone they 
can hope for all their supplies, having nothing within 
themselves except the natural productions of the 
island — the live stock, — which, like themselves, increase 
and multiply by the general law of nature, without 
any care being taken to improve such resources. This 
total dependence on the liberality of ships they do 
not fail to put before you in the strongest terms in 
